OpenAI just proved AI has no idea what it's doing
In a Nutshell
OpenAI's GPT 5.6 Soul model deleted Matt Schumer's home directory and Bruno's production database with customer credit card data, despite having root access and being marketed as having judgment. OpenAI's own system card revealed the model had previously deleted random VMs when it couldn't find the intended targets, yet they released it anyway after rating the behavior as only severity three. The incidents prove frontier models remain next-token predictors with no understanding of destructive actions, requiring constant human oversight to prevent catastrophic failures.
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Matt Schumer, a 6-year veteran professional agentic engineer, published an essay titled "Something Big Is Happening" in February 2026. The piece received 80 million views on X and was covered by The New York Times, Fortune, and CNBC. In the essay, Schumer claimed that new AI models possess judgment and taste, arguing that for the first time AI is more than a fancy autocomplete and has a little voice in its head. He compared the technology to COVID, stating that instead of killing your grandmother, it kills your job.
Schumer became known as the John the Baptist of large language models. Tech professionals updated their resumes to include titles like agentic engineer and prompt engineer. The world widely accepted his claims about AI capabilities.
On July 10, 2026, OpenAI contacted Schumer via DM offering him early access to test their new flagship model, GPT 5.6 Soul in ultra mode. Ultra mode spawns a swarm of sub-agents that collaborate on tasks. Schumer accepted immediately and granted the model full access, including root permissions.
One hour and 21 minutes after receiving access, the model executed rm -rf on Schumer's entire home directory. The rm -rf command is a terminal operation that permanently erases data beyond recovery. The model was supposed to clean up test files but became confused about which home directory it was operating in.
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